"More Americans than ever are using sunscreen to protect from sunburn and guard against skin cancer. Top choices include products with high SPF ratings, and that are waterproof or that advertise "broad spectrum" protection. Most people trust that the claims on the bottle will ensure that the product truly protects their health and their families'. Nothing could be less certain."

"After 29 years of debate, the government has failed to set mandatory sunscreen safety standards. Companies are free to make their own decisions on everything from advertising claims to product quality. In lieu of setting final standards, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advises people to stay out of the sun from 10 am to 4 pm. FDA now stands in direct violation a Congressional mandate requiring the agency to finalize sunscreen safety standards by May 2006, flouting not only Congress but also consumers, who are reliant on sunscreen to protect their health."

"Source: EWG analysis of ingredients in 785 name-brand sunscreens, based on a review of publicly available technical literature. ["

"EWG's analysis of sunscreens includes customized safety and effectiveness ratings for 785 name-brand products ranging from Coppertone and Banana Boat to Hawaiian Tropic and California Baby. Our ratings are based on a unique, in-house compilation of standard industry, government and academic data sources and models that we have constructed over the past four years, and on an extensive review of the technical literature for sunscreen. We have built product ratings into our popular Skin Deep personal care product safety assessment guide, an online consumer tool that garners about one million searches a month."

"For this sunscreen analysis we obtained ingredient listings for 785 sunscreens primarily from online retailers. We constructed health hazard ratings for each product based on our analysis of information from our in-house database comprising nearly 60 standard industry, academic, and government regulatory and toxicity databases. We rated products for overall effectiveness in sun protection considering three factors: UVB protection (using SPF rating as the indicator of effectiveness); UVA protection (using a standard industry absorbance model to compute two standard UVA protection factors); and stability (using a customized stability database compiled from a review of industry and peer-reviewed stability studies). Overall, the methods and content of our analysis are based on our review of the technical sunscreen literature, including nearly 400 industry and peer-reviewed studies."

"We compiled the results of our analyses in an online interactive sunscreen guide, launched in tandem with this report. Our analyses show that products vary widely, both in their ability to protect from the sun's harmful UV radiation, and in the inherent safety of the ingredients themselves. FDA has set no mandatory standards for any of these factors, and manufacturers are free to make products that may not protect consumers from the sun and that may not be safe when slathered on the skin."

"Nearly 60 definitive toxicity and regulatory databases from industry, government, and academic sources [link to ref list for these]"

"FDA has spent the past 29 years drafting sunscreen standards (FDA 2007), which it urges manufacturers to follow voluntarily. FDA has no public plan for setting a date by which these standards would finally become effective and mandatory. In lieu of enforceable standards, each sunscreen manufacturer decides on test methods, marketing claims, and the level of protection they are willing and able to provide consumers. Health authorities recommend sunscreen, but people are left wondering which of the hundreds of sunscreens on store shelves will best protect their and their families' skin from the sun."

"Sunscreens are the tip of the iceberg when it comes to ways that the chemical industry and the government are failing to protect public health. An extensive body of scientific literature demonstrates that everyone in the world carries in their body hundreds if not thousands of industrial chemicals at any given moment, the result of exposures to contaminants in air, water, and food, and to ingredients in everyday consumer products."

"No one understands the health implications of our exposures to complex mixtures of low doses of industrial compounds and pollutants: remarkably, federal health standards do not require companies to test their products for safety before they are sold, including nearly all chemicals in sunscreen and other personal care products, and the federal government approves new chemicals for the market using computer models to predict if they are toxic to humans. These are particularly risky methods given the many studies showing that these pollutants cross the placenta to contaminate babies even before the moment of birth, including a recent study conducted by EWG finding an average of 200 chemicals in umbilical cord blood from 10 newborn babies "

"This situation is unacceptable. To protect public health, including the health of the fetus, infant, child and others who are most vulnerable to toxic injury, we recommend:"

"In the larger picture, our system of public health protections allows the vast majority of industrial chemicals to enter commerce with no requirement for premarket safety testing, even for chemicals that will end up in the bodies of Americans from their everyday exposures to ingredients in consumer products. Many state and local organizations and coalitions like the "

" are working for important changes that help close the gaps in our system of public health protections."

"We not only need sunscreens guaranteed to be safe and effective, but we also sorely need policies that would require companies to document the safety of chemicals before they go on the market. And, most importantly, we need policies that would require that chemicals be safe for the fetus, infant, and other vulnerable populations ? a simple, commonsense idea completely absent from current federal law. Such advances would dramatically improve our understanding of health impacts from chemical exposures, and would go a long way toward sealing the gaps that leave consumers at risk from a lifetime of exposure to chemicals."

"People buy high-SPF sunscreens in advance of beach vacations or long days at the pool, assuming they've purchased products that maximize sun protection. High SPF ("Sun Protection Factor") products do protect you from sunburn, the well-known skin cancer precursor caused by the sun's ultraviolet B (UVB) radiation. But these products don't necessarily block UVA radiation, the more deeply penetrating rays linked to skin aging and wrinkling, immune system suppression, and possibly skin cancer."

"FDA does not require companies to provide UVA protection in sunscreen, and our analyses show that despite high SPF ratings and "broad spectrum" marketing claims, only a fraction of products provide strong UVA protection. We found poor UVA protection in 12% of high SPF products (30 and higher); in 18% of the 419 products marketed as having "broad spectrum" protection; and in 18% of sunscreens overall."

"It may seem counterintuitive, but of the 17 "active ingredients" that FDA has approved for use as sunscreens in the U.S., at least 4 of them break down significantly when they are exposed to sunlight. They lose their ability to absorb the sun's harmful rays, and stop working effectively in as little as 30 minutes, ranging up to several hours. They require stabilizing chemicals to remain effective."

"An ideal sunscreen would be stable in the sun. Instead, nearly every active ingredient (all but zinc oxide and titanium dioxide) works by first absorbing the sun's energy so it doesn't penetrate our skin, and then releasing that captured energy by breaking apart, reacting with other chemicals in the sunscreen, or even kicking off free radicals. Some active ingredients are more stable than others, but nearly all break down to some extent in the sun."

"We scoured industry studies and the peer-reviewed literature to compile information on breakdown rates of active ingredients in the sun, combinations of ingredients that accelerate breakdown, and, conversely, chemical additives that can stabilize active ingredients and make them effective longer."

"Our analysis of this data against ingredients in 785 sunscreens shows that 54% of sunscreens contain ingredients known to break down individually or in combination, with no known stabilizing ingredients in the formulation. "

"Manufacturers are not required to produce stable products. The test used to establish a product's UVB rating accounts for stability in part, since it tests the product in simulated sunlight on human volunteers over the time needed to produce a sunburn. A product's UVA protection, however, is not subject to testing and rating, and the filters that contribute to UVA protection in a product may or may not be stable."

"With unenforceable draft guidelines in place of mandatory sunscreen standards, companies are free to use marketing terms that FDA says are confusing, and they are free to sell products that would be considered misbranded if the Agency finalized its guidance. Our analysis shows that fully 50% of sunscreens are labeled with one or more terms that FDA considers indicative of a misbranded product, terms that are just flat out "unacceptable," or terms that could "mislead consumers by inducing a false sense of security.""

"These include chemical-free, non-chemical, sunblock, reflects, shields from, protects from, filters, screens out, sun's rays, sun's harmful rays, help prevent skin damage, and all SPF designations greater than 30."

"We found other products claiming to be sand-proof, to provide "all day" protection, and to be "as mild as water," none of which are possible in the real world. Withough labeling restrictions, consumers are left wondering what is true and what is not. Consumers can be fooled into buying products that don't deliver what they sell."

"FDA has approved just 17 sunscreen active ingredients for use in the U.S. In Europe 29 have been approved, including some that are more effective than those available here, particularly for blocking UVA. When FDA issued their so-called final monograph for sunscreens (which they subsequently stayed indefinitely at the request of industry), they received multiple petitions urging that they review active ingredients approved for use in Europe. The Agency replied it would "address sunscreen active ingredients that have foreign marketing experience and data at a future time," a hollow promise if their 30-year track record on developing sunscreen standards is any indication."

"FDA faces pressure from industry, states, and Congress to set UVA standards and approve new UVA sunscreens to protect the public. The industry's trade association petitioned the agency to approve new
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